If God were to address humanity today, it might begin with: “I’ve been grossly misrepresented. Also, I don’t endorse any of this.”
Because somewhere along our long march from stargazing apes to liturgical architects, we confused the idea of God with the institutions that claim to represent them. The truth is, God and religion have very little in common. One is a deeply personal, often ineffable philosophy. The other is a branded doctrine with office hours, property holdings, and an HR department.
God, in the purest sense, is an elegant question mark: the mystery behind existence, the whisper in the back of the mind when silence stretches too long, the infinite that sneaks in between breath and thought. It is a sense of awe, not a checklist. A verb, not a noun. Something felt, not proven.
Religion, on the other hand, is structure. System. It is myth institutionalized, metaphor weaponized. What began as oral tales to explain the stars turned into bylaws, prayer quotas, and dress codes. Somewhere along the line, religion stopped asking questions and started issuing commands. And for the most part, people complied, because religion does what God rarely does: it speaks with certainty.
Where God invites humility, religion offers hierarchy. Where God exists in mystery, religion insists on management.
And then came politics.
Today, the line between religion and political ideology is so faint it might as well be ceremonial incense. Religious movements now fund candidates. Politicians quote scripture like campaign slogans. Both traffic in allegiance, fear, and grand promises about futures they cannot guarantee.
The modern political party and the organized religion are no longer rivals, they are siblings raised in the same household of control, each borrowing strategies from the other. Faith is spun like public relations. Dogma is legislated. Salvation now comes with party endorsements.
This merger is not accidental. It's effective. Both institutions thrive on loyalty, identity, and opposition. Both need enemies to stay relevant. And most of all, both claim exclusive access to truth.
But here’s the twist: as politics grows more religious, religion grows more political. And God, the idea, the essence, the philosophical whisper, is nowhere in this shouting match. The divine has been sidelined by the performative. God, in many cases, has become the most irrelevant figure in their own religions.
Now we have televangelists with private jets, temples with entry fees, political rallies disguised as spiritual awakenings. We have algorithms feeding us curated faith and hashtags replacing hymns. Religion has become a marketplace of belief. Spirituality a subscription model.
And yet, in the rare, quiet moments; on mountaintops, in grief, under stars, in solitude; something stirs. Not the God of manifestos. Not the God of pulpits or party lines. But something deeper. The original question. The soft gasp that began it all.
Perhaps God did exist in those early questions.
Perhaps we buried that God under centuries of answers.
And perhaps, just perhaps, they quietly left the room…
…and we didn’t even notice.
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